Daily Devotion - 2/06/09

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

Periodically through the Psalter one comes upon a short song that lights up the page.  Let’s face it, at whatever level and with whatever “spin” one approaches the psalms, many are “heavy” in their message and implication:  they’re about sin and suffering and the eternal things that the believer must grapple with every day.

Then comes Psalm 93! 

In a burst of praise the psalmist reminds us of the eternal order of the world.  Whether we are struggling on the “Way” or have absolutely no interest in God and His relationships with man, one fact above all he insists be granted: 

“The Lord reigneth;

He is clothed with majesty.” (v. 1)

For the believer, for the struggler, this verse should provide great comfort.  It clears away all the questions and doubts that sometimes afflict us.  God is in charge.  Everything unfolds according to His permissive will.  No matter how dark or foreboding the situation, He is there, with us.  The implications of all this, if we but think about it for a moment, are staggering.  Everything that happens to us---to me this day---somehow occurs because God allows it to happen. 

So what’s so hopeful about this, you might ask?  Are we saying that God is responsible for evil in the world?

Orthodox Christianity’s answer to this question is, in one way only, yes.  God gives us free will, and from Adam and Eve down to the present day, He has made it clear that He respects this crucial human attribute:  some of the Fathers would say that free will is one of the important qualities that is subsumed under the idea that man is made in “God’s image.”  And if God is to respect our free will, it has important implications for each of us, and for humanity as a whole.  God will allow us to choose eternal death over eternal life, hell over heaven, and this in turn means that each of us has the power, temporarily, to inflict hell and death on those around us.  Such is the power of man, and the nature of fallen humanity!

But as Psalm 93 reminds, God is still in charge.  We believe that this means that God will somehow use everything ever done, the noble and the base, the honorable and the horrific, to bring about His purpose in creation:  that He is indeed Lord of all, and that whatever may befall us in this life He will manipulate---if we but let Him---as a mechanism to establish our permanent relationship with Him.

It may be bold to say---and certainly I am not claiming to be one who, because of his faith, doesn’t fear death or suffering---but I sort of think such fears that we all have---for me right now, old age, disease, the twilight of my life, death itself---show how weak our faith is.  If I really were firm on the Way, would I be so concerned about temporal and inevitable things, and so little concerned about what I claim to be the center of my life?

So I turn to Psalm 93 again.  How it challenges my doubts and my worries and my feeble faith!

At every Orthodox Vespers service, the first service of the new day, there is a psalm verse called the prokeimenon.  It is sort of a theme-song that summarizes the ideas of the service.  Is it any wonder that on Saturday evening, the initial service of the Lord’s Day, like all Sunday services dedicated to the Resurrection, priest and people intone as the evening prokeimenon verses from Psalm 93?  (I particularly love this translation, which gets to the heart of the psalm---and cuts to the heart my fears and failings): 

Turning toward the people, the priest on the altar proclaims:

“Wisdom.  Let us attend.  The evening prokeimenon in the 6^th tone:

             The Lord is King, He is clothed with majesty!”

 Choir and people respond by repeating this beautiful refrain.

Then the priest chants the following verses; after each, the response is the same:  “The Lord is King, He is clothed with majesty!” 

            Verse 1:  “The Lord is clothed and has girded Himself with strength.”

            Verse 2:  “For He established the world which shall not be moved.”

             Verse 3: “Holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord, unto length of days.”

For some reason, I’ve always loved this moment of Saturday Vespers---and as I read and meditate on Psalm 93, I begin to see why:  in the deepest recesses of my heart, where lurk all the terrors and evils and awfulness that a man can accumulate, I am reassured.  Even here, in the darkest chambers of my soul, where my confessor is the only human who has ever had to penetrate its horrors, “the Lord is King!  He is robed in majesty!”

Gary

Afterfeast of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple; feast of St. Bucolus, Bishop of Smyrna (1^st cen.)

 Psalm 93

 The LORD reigns, He is robed in majesty; 
       the LORD is robed in majesty 
       and is armed with strength. 
       The world is firmly established; 
       it cannot be moved.

 Your throne was established long ago; 
       You are from all eternity.

 The seas have lifted up, O LORD, 
       the seas have lifted up their voice; 
       the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

 Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, 
       mightier than the breakers of the sea— 
       the LORD on high is mighty.

 Your statutes stand firm; 
       holiness adorns Your house 
       for endless days, O LORD.